


Patience & Prudence

by SaunterVaguely



Category: BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anal Sex, Delta/Sinclair endgame, M/M, Memory Loss, Minor Violence, Mistaken Identity, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Rapture (BioShock), brief Fontaine/Sinclair in the beginning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:02:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29948328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaunterVaguely/pseuds/SaunterVaguely
Summary: Pre-game, an Alpha Series Protector witnesses an intimate moment and has a burst of free will. The encounter will have long-lasting consequences, both for him and one Augustus Sinclair.
Relationships: Augustus Sinclair/Subject Delta, Eleanor Lamb & Subject Delta, Frank Fontaine/Augustus Sinclair
Comments: 13
Kudos: 14





	1. I Know (I Know)

**Author's Note:**

> So okay look. Listen. I know technically the timeline of this is… slightly iffy. Gil isn’t supposed to really have met Sofia until well after the events of the first game, Delta’s transformation into a Big Daddy is nebulously post-Fontaine’s “death” etc etc. But if they can fudge the timeline and canonical details in the novel and the Burial at Sea DLC, I can absolutely do the same in an unlicensed fanfic.

_As far as the work goes, he minds welding the least. When he isn’t escorting little Eleanor as she flits from corpse to corpse, he is given menial tasks to keep him busy and keep things functioning, chores that are easier for him than they would be for the small, unprotected citizens of Rapture: out through the airlock and into the slow-motion world of the seabed. Something about the muffled, steady pressure of the ocean above, the serene movement of seaweed and fish around him and the city like a snowglobe below- he finds it soothing._

_Occasionally he will catch a glimpse of himself reflected in the glass, the expressionless helmet and bulky silhouette illuminated by sparks as he solders a weakened joint or drives a bolt into place. Often, he sees people on the other side of the glass, but they always turn quickly away, as if fearful of his gaze._

_Most of the time, his thoughts are jumbled and broken. Seemingly random things will fill him with unplaceable deja-vu, certain sounds will jolt vague memories. When he tries to focus too long on any of them, his head fills with painful static and his tenuous grasp slips away. As it is, he has a strange collection of images and sensations without context: dirt under the fingernails of his too-small, ungloved hands as he clutches a fistful of tiny white flowers; the taste of iron and salt bubbling up from his throat as he is dragged through a strange doorway; water falling from above in sheets as a flash of light and a rolling rumble fill the air; a man in a hat and gown holding a rolled-up piece of paper and smiling proudly as he extends a hand; steel bars sliding shut with an echoing clang. He wishes he could recall the concrete details of his humanity, things like a name, a home, a birthday. What he has instead are a designation stamped on his hand, an endless patrol through a strange underwater city, and the moment he opened his eyes inside the helmet and was Subject Delta._

_Sometimes, though, his mind feels more his own, and he revels in his clearheadedness in the same beat that he dreads losing it again. He runs through what he knows over and over in these moments, turns every scrap of knowledge into a mantra even if he doesn’t fully understand it: A wondrous Engine is contriveing; In forme, t'is said, much like a Bell. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy may be used as a treatment for those suffering from decompression sickness, or “the bends”. Et d’un’ chanson d’amour la mer, A bercé mon cœur pour la vie. Recent soundings have shown that the Mendocino Escarpment extends a full thousand miles from shore._

_He’s playing and replaying one such snippet in his head as he seals a few cracks in the foundation of a building: Hippoglossus hippoglossus, or the Atlantic Halibut, is a species of flatfish in the Pleuronectidae family. Hippoglossus hippoglossus, or the Atlantic Halibut, is a species of flatfish in the Pleuronectidae family. Hippoglossus hippoglossus, or the Atlantic Halibut, is a species of flatfish…_

_He’s repeated the words so many times that they’ve blended into nonsensical nothingness when he looks up to see two men in the room in front of him. It’s an office, he thinks abstractly, the angular shapes of the desk and chair dredging blurry memories up from his subconscious. The men appear to be in intense conversation, one leaning against the desk and the other all but looming over him. They’re both of a stocky build, the leaning man a head shorter, dark-haired and clean shaven and oddly familiar, the other sporting a bare scalp and a mustache over a sharp grin. On second glance, it might not be conversation so much as- ah._

_This, too, rings familiar somewhere in the vacuum of his recollection, stirring something as he watches the shorter man slide off the desk and onto his knees. He knows what this is, what it means, even if he has nothing solid to compare it to in his life as Delta. He should turn away, his somewhat vestigial sense of shame informs him, but just then the kneeling man looks at him- meets his gaze, somehow, despite the double layer of glass between them. The man’s eyes are dark and shining and suddenly that slight stirring is something alive and urgent, ravenously covetous of this strange, intimate bit of contact, and his face heats up despite the cold depths leaching into his suit._

* * *

“Close the blinds, willya? I don’t like that thing watching.”

Sinclair pulls away from his current activity, wiping his chin, and glances up at the hulking figure through the glass. “He’s not hurtin’ anything. ‘Sides, with that helmet, how would you know if he’s even looking our way?”

Fontaine growls in annoyance, either at the answer or at the interruption it caused, and shoots a glare first at the Protector and then down at the man crouching in front of him. “You would say that, you little deviant. What, you getting off to those big freaks now?”

With a good-natured chuckle, Sinclair stands up and undoes his fly, shrugging out of his suspenders and dropping his pants around his ankles. “If I’m a deviant, what does that make you?”

It’s meant as a distraction, and it works. Fontaine grabs him by the shoulder, spins him and pushes him down onto the desk again, presses up against him from behind. “ _Impatient._ ”


	2. You Belong to Somebody New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments and questions are welcome and appreciated!

_He really should leave. He can feel the silent urging of his conditioning, the droning reminder to finish his work and return to Point Prometheus. He finds he’s able to drown it out, though, however briefly, and he’s loath to abandon his admittedly voyeuristic post. He makes a few feeble pretenses at continuing his welding, barely watching where he’s aiming the tool. Every time he risks a peek, he finds the dark-haired man watching him, seemingly only curious at first but with more of a roguish grin as the moment stretches on, his flushed cheeks dimpling charmingly and his white, perfect teeth pressing into his lower lip. At one point he winks, and Delta actually drops his torch and has to go fumbling to catch it with clumsy hands._

_The other man, the one with the mustache, never looks up after the scowl he aimed at Delta before, focused now on fucking the man under him hard and fast. There’s no sound through the glass, of course, but Delta imagines he can hear the rough, ragged breaths, the dull thud against the desk, the occasional moan from the man being fucked. He’s the only one Delta’s focused on, truthfully, and when he reaches a hand down to touch himself, eyes finally sliding shut, it’s only the suit that stops the Protector from doing the same. He hasn’t tried anything like that; it hasn’t occurred to him even in his isolated lucid flashes. He starts to imagine it, now: himself in place of the mustached man, taking the dark-haired man slow and then fast, making him cry out- he hesitates, the image disrupted as it dawns on him that he has no idea what he looks like anymore._

_He’s never taken off the suit, isn’t even sure if he can, and it dawns on him that he can’t remember growing hungry or needing to use a bathroom. He doesn’t even tire, really; when Eleanor clambers into a “hidey-hole” to sleep, he wanders away and performs his tasks until he senses her again._

_What does he look like? He’s big, he knows that, bigger than any of the people he sees in Rapture’s halls. Is he deformed? Monstrous? His fantasy shifts distressingly: the dark-haired man backing away from him in terror, horrified by his bared, mutated form._

_He’s so shaken by the thought that he slips back into his mindless default for a minute or two, retreating from fear into unthinking labor. When he’s able to break free again, he sees the men have finished their encounter and are cleaning themselves up, their renewed conversation stifled by the barrier._

* * *

As they’re dressing, Fontaine reaches out and catches hold of Sinclair’s chin, fingertips rough as he tilts it back in consideration. “What’d you say the doc’s name was that did your teeth?”

Augustus arches one smooth brow. “You plannin’ on getting some work done, Frank?”

“Nah, askin’ for a friend.” He thumbs the corner of Sinclair’s mouth, not affectionately, but the way one might examine a horse they were contemplating buying. “Me, I ain’t a fan of needles.” 

Sinclair narrows his eyes in thought, then bats Frank’s hand away and turns to his desk, scribbling something on an open notepad. “Just gave me an idea. I’ll bet there’s some way to make an ADAM-based face cream, sell it as a kind of ‘surgery-free facelift’.”

“You’d need a helluva lot of ADAM for that kinda production.”

“Only for the first batch,” he responds, still writing. “Dilute the next batch a bit, then the next one, folks have to buy more and more to get the same results.”

Fontaine laughs and says, almost admiringly, “You’re the lowest of the low, y’know that Gus?”

“Mm.” Sinclair sets the pen down, brushes his mussed hair back into place, his eyes drawn automatically back to the still-present Big Daddy by the window. “Considering what you and yours get up to, that’s saying something.”

“Just doin’ what I got to to stay ahead,” Fontaine says with a shrug, his gaze fixing on the city outside, outlined in neon. “Ryan’s breathing down my neck these days.”

“Don’t I know it,” Sinclair snorts as he redoes his tie. “Damn near all he talks about.”

“Oh yeah?” Fontaine’s distant look turns suddenly to a very focused glare. “You and the boss are real friendly, huh? You tell him about me?”

“Tell him what, exactly? That you sometimes stop by and whitewash my back porch? We’d both of us be thrown off the Drop-” He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as Fontaine lunges at him, grabbing him by the arm. 

“You shut your goddamn mouth, you hear me? I’m not some- some-”

“Some queer?” Augustus challenges sourly, trying to yank his wrist free. “All evidence to the contrary, Frank.”

With a snarl, Fontaine shoves forward, throwing Sinclair back against the glass. The hand not clamped around his arm grips him by the throat, then the jaw, squeezing like a vice until something pops disconcertingly.

“Say that again,” Fontaine hisses furiously, “I fuckin’ dare you, say it again.”

Sinclair makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat, but the next sound doesn’t come from either of them- something slams into the glass from the other side, startling them both. The grim red glow from the alerted Big Daddy’s helmet seems to smoulder like a coal as the low, warning rumble emanates through the wall. Fontaine jerks back on instinct, and Sinclair seizes the opportunity, wrenching free and darting to his desk to yank open a drawer. 

Fontaine whips around after him, but Sinclair’s already pulled a pistol from the drawer and leveled it at him. “I think that’s enough of that,” he says, a faint wheeze under his Southern drawl. “On your way, now.”

Slowly, Fontaine raises his hands, eyes flicking from the gun to the window and back as he starts to speak through gritted teeth. “Gus, listen-”

“I don’t believe I stuttered.” Sinclair’s tone is steady despite the rasp. “Outta my office, if you please, and don’t come back.”

Seething, he does so, facing Sinclair and backing out until the doors seal him from the room. As soon as they do, Sinclair slams the lock and lets out a sigh, slumping down into the chair that was pushed away from the desk in the scuffle. He sets the gun back into its drawer and instead withdraws a pack of cigarettes, lighting one without bothering with his usual holder. 

“Well,” he says on an exhale, smoke pluming around him as he turns to look at the Big Daddy. “Not exactly how I was hopin’ that encounter would end. Guess I should count myself lucky you were around, huh? My knight in shinin’ armor.” He rubs his jaw ruefully.

The Protector, of course, doesn’t answer- probably doesn’t even hear him through the window, let alone hold any interest in the quarrel he’s inadvertently broken up.

Sinclair lets out a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “Anyhow, I owe you one, Chief.”

* * *

_The dark-haired man is speaking to him, a wry smile on his bruised face as he leans back in his chair. Delta can’t hear a word of it, but it feels- companionable, conversational in a way he can’t remember experiencing before, and he wishes absently that he could read lips or use sign language. Instead he slowly raises his free hand, the one not holding the now-cold torch, and gingerly touches the glass with his fingertips._

_The smile freezes on the man’s face, his eyes widening in something like shock or surprise. He rises from the chair and takes a cautious step toward the window, his left hand twitching slightly, lifting, coming to rest against the glass in a mirror of Delta’s._

_A ping at the back of his mind, growing stronger and stronger, tells Delta that Eleanor is awake and searching for him, and he instinctively turns his head toward the distant location. When he glances back at the window, the man has lowered his hand, shaking his head and murmuring something to himself._

_The ping becomes more insistent and Delta finds himself moving away from the office on autopilot, his sense of self quickly disappearing under the endless waves of his conditioning. The last he sees of the man is the pinpoint glow of his cigarette, fading against the murky water._

  
  



End file.
